Due to concerns regarding urban air pollution, the problems and maintenance needs of gas engines, as well as other factors, electric lawn mowers are gaining in popularity. Moreover, due to the inconveniences and operating limitations of corded electric mowers, battery operated cordless electric mowers may be preferred. As described herein however, such battery operated mowers can have drawbacks.
Some of these drawbacks can be associated with the functionality of the battery, including battery life and the storage and transfer of the battery, including insertion and removal of the battery from the mower.
Other drawbacks are associated with self-drive transmissions that use a belt-tensioning drive system, whereby the tension on a set of variable stepped sheaves can be configured to control the speed of a drive axle from a continuous speed motor. Such a system however is inefficient because the self-drive motor must run constantly at high speed, thereby constantly drawing maximum power. Furthermore, as is known in the art, efficiency losses are observed in such a slipping belt system.
According to other drawbacks associated with battery operated mowers, in some instances during high-load grass cutting (i.e., wet, and/or thick grass), the operating speed of the blade motor(s) is reduced while the speed of a self-drive motor is unchanged. In this way, cutting performance is degraded because the speed of the self-drive motor is not adjusted to compensate for the reduced operating speed of the blade motor.
Other drawbacks associated with battery operated mowers involve a cumbersome mulching mode switching process and inadequate driver feedback information. For example, it may be desirable for an operator to easily obtain information relating to battery-power, mower blade operation, self-drive motor operation and/or other information, such as operational faults associated with the mower.